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Handleing on Marks????

I have always heard to handle back to the mark if the dog leaves the area of fall. My situation is that i am trying to extend my 9 mth old female in a little heavier cover. The problem is she started giving up if she dont step on the mark. She will hunt for a bit then just give up. I would stop her and put her on the bird. Well now she gets to the area , stops, turns around and look at me for help. I seen Danny Farmer address the wide hunt in problems and solutions DVD and he even said to just handle the dog back. What do i do now?? Seems like i created a problem. I plan on shorting the distance in the cover to try and rebuild her confidence. Anyone else have this problem?

Forgive me if I'm interrupting any programme that you may be on?.
But for 'here' (contrary to what some think) . A mark is a mark!..if you handle on it, then you are not teaching 'marking', you are teaching the dog to 'not be confident' on a mark ..full stop.

Make it a 'no -brainer' , that a blind man on a galloping horse can see!, and work from there!
...
I doubt the great Farmer' would be handling on a mark!, you may be misunderstanding the situation that he would be describing?. my guess is , He is talking about 'Attrition' .

Need to have your gunner help, holler and maybe even throw another bumper to pull the pup into the area.

The other thing you can do is seed the area with bumpers so the pup will have a greater chance of success. Nine months old is pretty young to be handling.

Meredith

I agree have the thrower help as little as possible, but as much as needed. Start off with the thrower standing up, then giving a hey hey, then walking closer to the fall with a hey hey, until the dog is attracted to the area of the fall. If this does not work you can try to line fire have the thrower or machine ready to throw another mark give a hey hey and throw exactly the same as the first one to prevent the pup from breaking down to soon or fading with the wind. Only handle if the dog is switching on a double or retreating to an older fall.

Also if all else fails I would recommend walking to the area of the fall calling the dog to you and cueing "hunt it up" or "dead bird" I would stop all handling on marks, throw only singles and try to help in the order given. You dont want your dog to pop and give up on hunt because you have created a habit of handling on marks.

Have the gunner help, set her up a dirt clod drill. Basically the gunner throws dirt clods, dog goes to the area soon gives up and leaves the area, cause there's no bird to find, then the gunner sneaks in a bird to the area. Dog is stopped corrected then directed to return to the area and hunt it up, where they find the bird. That usually helps with making them trust their eyes and make a thorough search. If you do have to handle your dog, sit her and correct her for being out of the area, then handler her to the area and tell her to hunt, don't handle her directly to the bird, make her find it. If she stops on you, either ignore her, if they sit there long enough and you didn't stop them they'll usually start moving again, or you can say NO hunt it Up, either way don't cast her, she's looking for a cast don't give her one.

And wait I just re-read and the pup is only 9mt old, disregard the correction part (save that for later after she's confident on marks, and intentionally blowing you off) , Absolutely have the gunners help her on marks, you need to keep her confidence up. Marks are her job, she need to learn how to dig out a mark, without your help. So if she gets there put your hands in your pockets, and whistle away, have the gunners keep her in the area, they will help to teach her to find it on her own.

Last edited by Hunt'EmUp; 10-01-2013 at 03:23 PM.

"They's Just DAWGS"
"Hunting is a skill to be learned whether you do it early or late it still needs to be learned"
"I train dogs, Not papers"

I have always heard to handle back to the mark if the dog leaves the area of fall. My situation is that i am trying to extend my 9 mth old female in a little heavier cover. The problem is she started giving up if she dont step on the mark. She will hunt for a bit then just give up. I would stop her and put her on the bird. Well now she gets to the area , stops, turns around and look at me for help. I seen Danny Farmer address the wide hunt in problems and solutions DVD and he even said to just handle the dog back. What do i do now?? Seems like i created a problem. I plan on shorting the distance in the cover to try and rebuild her confidence. Anyone else have this problem?

As others have mentioned, no handling on marks for a 9mo puppy, he's still a baby. Get gunner help only when required

But...you should be striving for 80+ % success on marks, even higher with a young pup. You need him to be confident in his marks. It sounds to me like you're moving too fast for him, s l o w down...

I would go back to a football field type surface and make sure he is seeing the marks all the way to the ground. And when he gets close he sees the mark. Confidence. Then you can start stretching him out further...still on that mowed field. When he is exploding with confidence on marks at the distances you want, then and only then would I move to medium cover. Then move up again, way up. Let him learn to run to the spot he saw the mark fall, then engage his nose.

If you want him to learn to use his nose then work that in another session on very short marks into heavier cover, where he has the confidence that he knows where the mark fell, but needs his nose to dig it out. But not until the visual marking and high confidence has been instilled.

I see everybody is freaking out that I handled to a mark with a 9 month old dog. I don't run field trials, I train for hunt test. I handle all of my dogs at this age. I have HR titled dogs at this age. On the Danny Farmer video he was correcting for a dog that leaves the AOF and would have returned to the old AOF. Guess I misunderstood this that if my dog quit and came back to me, as mine is doing, I should send her back to where she quit at. I train using wingers by myself. So I would walk towards her sending her back. I will set up 3 wingers side by side then if she quits, fire another . What you think?